ABSTRACT
James Mason of Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire was a remarkable man, whose origins are shrouded in mystery. He was brought up by the widow of an architect named Mason, but, according to a memoir written by his grandson, was in fact the natural son of a man who came from a very well-known family'. The asking price for the estate was 54,000. It is not known what price Mason paid for it, but the purchase did not by any means exhaust his capital. In the early 1870s he remodelled the Hall substantially, to the plans of the eminent designer Owen Jones, adding east and west wings and a fourth storey. The soil quality on the Mason estates was not of the best. The agents in 1866 had described the Eynsham Hall estate as having a stiff loam and clay surface, with a clay subsoil'.
